Happy New Year! I hope that everyone had a joyous and restful holiday season and I wish everyone a smooth transition back to the daily routine of your respective lives and offices. For me, the New Year always represents a time for reflection and a time to set goals for the next twelve months. The LGBT community has much to be thankful for in 2014. Yet, we must be resolute in continuing to strive for equality and justice, not just for society at-large but also within and across our own diverse community. As lawyers and legal professionals we are uniquely qualified to offer our skills and expertise to advance these aspirations.

At BALIF, we have many exciting events planned for 2015, which will mark our 35th anniversary! This year, as you've come to expect, BALIF will hold our Annual Gala, monthly happy hours, and other dynamic networking and social events. In addition, in 2015 the BALIF Board of Directors will be revealing the result of a special project that will give our members and the legal community an all new opportunity to support BALIF and to turn the goals above into a reality. Stay-tuned!

I look forward to seeing you at the next BALIF event and please feel free to contact me if there is anything BALIF can do to better serve you or our community.

A Fireside Chat and Reception with Silicon Valley United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Cabeca.

Thursday, January 15, 2015, 6-8 pm

Perkins Coie LLP

Four Embarcadero Center, Suite 2400

San Francisco, CA 94111

Please join us at an evening networking reception and fireside chat with John Cabeca, the Director of the Silicon Valley United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). John will talk openly about his life and experiences over his 25 year career at the USPTO. He will also provide an overview of the community-focused services and educational programs that will be offered through the Silicon Valley regional office.

The 4th Annual Staying True to Your Roots CLE Event is scheduled for Friday, January 16th at the Practicing Law Institute, 685 Market Street, Suite 100 in San Francisco. 6 hours of Continuing Legal Education credits for California attorneys will be provided, including credits in Legal Ethics, Competence Issues, and Recognition and Elimination of Bias in the Legal Profession and Society.

Because BALIF is a sponsor, you will receive National Lawyers Guild member rates. Courses include: Discrimination Update: New Avenues for Vindicating Employee Rights; Using PAGA Representative Actions on Behalf of Low Wage Workers; Starting and Maintaining a Criminal Defense Practice; and Starting and Maintaining a Tenants Rights Practice.

Please join Pride Law Fund and the Bay Area Ski Bus for Gay Ski Day at Squaw Valley Resort on Saturday, January 31, 2015. Buses will leave from SF and Walnut Creek in the morning and will return that night for a fun-filled day of snow adventures (including downhill and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and hot-chocolate drinking by the fire).

Proceeds benefit legal services and advocacy for the LGBT community in the Bay Area and beyond!

Perkins Coie LLP

1L Diversity Fellowship Scholarship

Our firm is committed to the growth and development of legal communities that more accurately reflect the rich diversity of our communities at large. Our diversity fellowships provide students with a $7,500 academic scholarship and a paid position as a 2015 summer associate in one of the following Perkins Coie offices: Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle or Washington, D.C.

The National LGBT Bar Association is pleased to announce a partnership with Prudential Financial, Inc. (Prudential) and Genova Burns LLC (Genova Burns) to provide a fellowship opportunity to a highly-motivated law school student. Through this partnership, we will select a law school student to be the 2015 National LGBT Bar Association-Prudential Law Fellow.

The Fellow will be hired to the position of a 2L Summer Fellow at Genova Burns for the summer following the Fellow's second year of law school in 2015, and upon satisfactory completion of the summer program, will be expected to begin work at Genova Burns on a date to be determined by the firm.

The LGBT Bar Association is pleased to partner with Prudential Financial, Inc. to provide a meaningful summer internship opportunity for a highly-motivated first-year law student. Through this partnership, The LGBT Bar will select a student to join the 2015 summer law intern class at Prudential for a 10-week internship at Prudential's New Jersey/New York offices.

Prudential and its affiliates are Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employers and are committed to diversity in our workforce.

Follow BALIF on Twitter!

BALIF's twitter feed is up and running. Follow us to see BALIF news, event info, #ThrowbackThursday posts, and more. Just click the Twitter button in the right hand column of the newsletter or here.

Uber Discount for BALIF Members

Request a ride with the push of a button! Uber is offering new users $20 off your first ride. Text BALIF to 827-222. You can also sign up at uber.com/go/BALIF and download the app for Android, Blackberry, or iPhone. Then sit back and enjoy the magic of Uber, everyone's private driver. (Valid for new users only, TAXI excluded).

Join the BALIF Listserv!

Have a job or need one? Civil procedure question? Need a

referral? Have something important to ask ... or news to tell? Want to get to our members quickly? Join our Listserv!

BALIF members should have received our invitation to join our newly-created Listserv. You must proactively respond to the request in order to be added to our Listserv. If you didn't get a request, please let us know by emailing technology@balif.org or balif@balif.org.

We Want Your BALIFBuzz

We all love that section in our alumni newsletters that talks about who's doing what.

Well, we're introducing the BALIFBuzz to show-off all the great things that our members are doing. BALIFBuzz will be appearing in the weekly BALIF newsletter.